# browse
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English browsen, from Old French brouster, broster (“to nibble off buds, sprouts, and bark; browse”), from brost (“a sprout, shoot, bud”), from a Germanic source, perhaps Frankish *brust (“shoot, bud”), from Proto-Germanic *brustiz (“bud, shoot”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrews- (“to swell, sprout”). Cognate with Bavarian Bross, Brosst (“a bud”), Old Saxon brustian (“to sprout”). Doublet of brut, breast, and brush.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /bɹaʊz/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Homophone: brows
* Rhymes: -aʊz

### Verb

browse (third-person singular simple present browses, present participle browsing, simple past and past participle browsed)
* To scan, to casually look through in order to find items of interest, especially without knowledge of what to look for beforehand.
    I'm just browsing around.
    I stopped in several bookstores to browse.
* To move about while sampling, such as with food or products on display.
* (transitive, computing) To navigate through hyperlinked documents on a computer, usually with a browser.
* (intransitive, of an animal) To move about while eating parts of plants, especially plants other than pasture, such as shrubs or trees.
** 1997, Colorado State Forest Service‎:Also, when planting to provide a source of browse for wintering deer and elk, protect seedlings from browsing during the first several years; an electric fence enclosure can offer effective protection.
* (archaic, transitive) To feed on, as pasture; to pasture on; to graze.
** 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Gardener’s Daughter; or, The Pictures”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 21:The fields between / Are dewy-fresh, brows'd by deep-udder'd kine, […]

#### Derived terms

* browsability
* browsable
* browseable
* browser
* browsewood
* browsewrap
* browsy
* nonbrowsing
* overbrowse
* unbrowsed

#### Translations
### Noun

browse (countable and uncountable, plural browses)
* (uncountable) Young shoots and twigs.
** 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:And with their horned feet the greene gras wore, / The whiles their Gotes upon the brouzes fedd […]
** 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed, / On browz, and corn, and flowery meadows feed.
* (uncountable) Fodder for cattle and other animals.
** 1997, Colorado State Forest Service‎:Also, when planting to provide a source of browse for wintering deer and elk, protect seedlings from browsing during the first several years; an electric fence enclosure can offer effective protection.
** 2007, Texas Parks and Wildlife Service‎:In the Panhandle Area, bison eat browse that includes mesquite and elm.
* (countable) The act of browsing through something.
    I had a browse in the old bookshop.
* (countable) That which one browses through; something to read.
** 1899, Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co.:Here he buried himself in a close-printed, thickish volume which had been his chosen browse for some time.

### Further reading

* “browse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
* “browse”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* Bowers, Bowser, bowers, bowres, bowser

## Danish
### Verb

browse (imperative brows, present browser, past browsede, past participle browset)
* (computing) to browse

## Dutch
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Verb

browse
* inflection of browsen:
** first-person singular present indicative
** (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
** imperative
** (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive

## German
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Verb

browse
* inflection of browsen:
** first-person singular present
** first/third-person singular subjunctive I
** singular imperative